Jason Reitman Quotes

Always when you are doing films, the themes swallow you in one way or another.

When I'm working on a film, I think about how it will play with a tiny audience of friends whose opinions I respect - basically, a 40-bloc radius from my apartment in Manhattan.

As far as I know, if you take your time, write a good script and make a good film, then give the audience time, they will accept it.

I don't understand the whole testing-numbers thing. It is not how I want to make movies.

When I saw 'Talk to Her' for the first time, I was crying out loud because I couldn't imagine that I was doing that film.

I make movies that audiences like, that I'd want to see. That's all.

Every time you make a movie it's an adventure.

TV has gotten perhaps better than your average film script, but at the same time, it's fun to give it all you've got for a few months and produce a story.

I think I would have a better time writing films rather than directing.

All my films have some kind of statement about something - but I have to coat it with entertainment to make it palatable. Otherwise it becomes a polemic, and people don't want to see it. If you're trying to get a message out to people, you've got to entertain them at the same time.

I originally went to school to be a filmmaker. And so it's a big part of how I think and how I write. And it inspires me a lot.

I'm always making movies for my audiences, but I'm not trying to meet their expectations.

There are some movies you do for the character; there are some movies you do for the people.

I just make movies and hope people appreciate them.

I think, in fact, there's a plus and a minus to knowing my prior work, Happiness and so forth. The plus is of course you can see how I play with the characters, the storylines, and the way things play off each other. And the minus is that it makes you a little bit more self-conscious, that you're not able to enter the movie as it exists and lives and breathes, because you're so busy making references, connections that you're not able to release yourself from and take the film on your own terms.

I love to tell stories, but the making is less comfortable. I like to be private, and being in the middle of a film crew with the least amount of privacy is the discomfort of shooting a movie. For me, the editing is the great moment when I can bring back ideas and realize the movie for the last time before I hand it to the audience.

If you have skills to pull off even a four-hour film, people will go and watch it.

A movie is very different when you're writing the script and you're building a story compared to what the final product is.

So you know, as a filmmaker you have to get it all right in the writing stage. After that, one has to leave it on the judgement of your trusted ones and the audiences.

Obviously 'Pete's Dragon' is more commercial than 'A Ghost Story,' but when making them, I'm just trying to tell a story that matters to me, that ultimately would satisfy me as a moviegoer. Because watching movies is my favorite thing to do. I watch a lot of them.

Eventually, the outcome of a film is not in my hands. What I do while making the film is in my hands, and that is what translates onto the screen.

I love the team aspect of filmmaking.

When you're trying to make a film, you're trying to find a way to love your subject, and you want your audience to love your subject.

There is so much that I love about all aspects of making a film or a TV show.

Personally, as a filmmaker, I think you should prepare your audience as to what they can expect.